What Do You Do for New User Orientation?

An anonymous reader asks: "What do you do for new user orientation? I started at a company as part of a very small help desk / MIS department. Part of my job is to give orientation to all new computer users for the entire company (no more than 10 new users a week). Right now I have to sit with each user, go over logging in, passwords, email, outlook, Microsoft Office, and so on. This takes between 30-45 minutes. What do other IT departments do? I was thinking of a Flash presentation or website, and maybe even a short orientation movie. What ideas have you tried and how well did they work?"

Swim or drown

[Zombie]

We give our new guys a laptop and tell them to install it. If it's not running Debian smoothly by the next day, we fire them. What they use for office, mail, web, chat - whatever, is their own business.

Re:Here's what I do

[BrokenHalo]

Actually, given the small amount that most new users manage to retain from those quickie orientation sessions, that might not be such a bad policy.

Better would be a quick session to show users how to logon, and present them with a simple printed booklet to cover details. This has the double advantage of being much easier to maintain than a Flash presentation, as well as usually being easier to process mentally.

I know there are many who might throw up their hands in horror when I say this, but for all that Flash presentations might be very good for impressing nerds, they are not necessarily a good medium for conveying instructions.

Make them build their own desk or chair

[hirschma]

New hires at my old company were given a cheapo desks and chairs that required assembly. This applied to everyone from the receptionist to my most senior hires.

They were shown to their new spot, given the tools, and told that this was their first order of business. That was all.

Nearby employees were told to offer any and all assistance, but only if asked.

This worked on many levels. It was symbolic of the philosophy at the company. For some, it ended up being a "team-building" exercise, or a social ice-breaker. For others, it showed that they were clever and self reliant. Some folks couldn't get it done, and refused to ask for help. This almost always signified termination at their first opportunity. And the .com type investors loved it, too :)

Ask after religious preferences first

[abb3w]

To wit, PC vs. Mac vs. Linux. Mac users are also asked about how long they've been using them.

Next is setting up their accounts; this involves warning them of the minimum acceptable complexity allowed for passwords, showing them how to change their passwords to something marginally more memorable than the automatic preassigned random gibberish, and reminding them of the minimum requirements after the first password change attempt is rejected. I then tell them that neither I nor anyone else will ever ask for their password — if I or anyone in IT need access, we will change it, and tell them the new password afterward (so the user may change it back); anyone who asks for their password should be reported to me and to the central IT security number immediately as an attempt to breach security.

After that, I point out the selection of web browsers available on their workstation (IE/Firefox/Opera, additional options for the Mac), advocate Firefox for regular use, and direct them to the central IT website's security training -- which is mostly dick-and-jane "don't share passwords, human!" common sense stuff; there's a quiz as part of it. I tell them to complete the security training, while I do something vaguely productive nearby (borrowing a mobile laptop if need be) and wait for questions. At the end, I point out the main IT policies page, note that most of it is common sense, but they should glance through the policies as soon as possible, because they may end up "nailed to the wall with rusty railroad spikes as a warning to others" if they fail to follow them. If they express doubt, I invite them to stop by my desk to see my rusty railroad spikes. (Bottom desk drawer; four of 'em, plus a 6kg sledge with a 40 cm handle. Just in case.)

Once that's done, I then introduce them to the most regularly used software applications: email, Office, calendaring app, the local quick-and-dirty non-Acrobat PDF maker, and so on. The VPN software usually requires a digression into a bad analogy to explain why it's important. ("If you use the dumb-as-a-senator idea that the internet is a series of tubes, the problem is that most of the tubes are transparent, and might let any evil passerby see what's inside. Unless you're willing to give me all of your credit cards now to go shopping with, this is a bad thing. A VPN uses cryptography to run an opaque garden hose over to one of our secure machines, so people can't spy on you until after your traffic leaves our network again.") An overview of the strengths and limitations of whatever POS machine they're stuck working at follows.

I then give them my mixed guru/BOFH lecture:

• I have pity on ignorance and will treat it with patience and education
• I feel paranoia is preferable to carelessness, and will grant much leeway accordingly
• I was educated by Catholic nuns, own a ruler, and believe pain is a wonderful way to focus the mind
• I have no mercy for outright stupidity, and no-one has ever found a body I've hidden
• I have potential access to any data on any of our systems, but have better things to do than read their email "usually"
• I will be happy to help them install any needed software once I am convinced it is licensed and not a security threat
• When I respond to a request with "you have my divided attention", they should accept this as the best they'll get, since my undivided attention requires a loaded weapon to obtain and is unhealthy to have
• I have no life, so they may feel free to call me at home outside normal work hours, but should understand that I answer the phone in Klingon to discourage telemarketing computers, that they may need to leave a message on my answering machine, and that they must accept that after hours *I* get to decide how important the problem is.

I have happy users; I am beloved, respected, and feared. Aside from an expresso machine for my office, what more could a geek want?